


Winter's Night

by Fintan



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Beacon Hill, Christmas, Eternal Sterek, Happy Ending, Kissing, Loss, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Teen Wolf, Tragedy, True Love, mystical being, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:22:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fintan/pseuds/Fintan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sadness of holidays, the mystery of the town name revealed, and a terrifying encounter with the Ancient of Days become parts of Stiles' attempts to free Derek from his sorrows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Night

**Author's Note:**

> Story inspired by this photograph:
> 
> http://25.media.tumblr.com/db143edc53112fc1660318835e4812d1/tumblr_mhh08zZCYn1rmvzdzo1_500.jpg

Some Christmases are merry and bright, others you endure, hoping no one will ask you, “What’s wrong?”

Stiles knew why his dad pulled double shifts at work during Christmas week. He didn’t blame him. When his mother was alive, the house was overflowing with warmth and light. In the years after her death, his dad had tried to imitate her efforts for Stiles’ sake, but it never worked. All his good intentions just underscored the empty place where his mother used to live. Stiles had poured his energies into trying to make up the difference. It was exhausting for both of them. Sheriff Stilinski found purpose in his work. Better he be at the police station. Stiles was fine. He lacked the gene for self-pity. Even better, he had found a new obsession to fill the time.

It was an old book Stiles had found in the remnants of the Hale family’s library while trying to avoid what had been the worst Christmas party in the long and terrible history of terrible Christmas parties. Stiles blamed Scott. Sometimes being good-hearted and having generous ideas wasn’t enough. Yes, of course, the pack needed a holiday party, but the derelict Hale mansion was the wrong place for it.

Isaac, and Scott showed up with a scraggly Charlie Brown of a Christmas tree cut from the forest and hauled it inside. Alison and Lydia placed some simple lights and decorations on it. But with the tree it seemed they dragged into the house the ghosts of everyone Derek had loved and lost. Laura, his parents, the never-ending ache of Boyd and Erica. Derek didn’t want his pack to know his hurt, but they were linked by the bite, and they could feel the crush of his sorrow.

Derek offered a weak smile. "I need a little time. Just … right after new years. We’ll get together then.” Stiles understood first. “All right, people, let’s go, nothing to see, move along, move along” he said in his imitation of cop speak, but the joke didn’t play. The pack couldn’t abandon their former alpha. They wanted to stay and try to comfort him, but Stiles could find steel in himself when he needed. "There’s no cuddle for this. Some things are hard. Derek needs peace. If we love him, and we love him very much,” he said pointedly, “we need to leave him alone.”

The pack turned to look at Derek who was avoiding their eyes. Derek nodded at Stiles and then simply walked out of the house. The pack left quietly, Stiles at the last. He emptied the house of all decorations before leaving.

* * *

The old book smelled amazing. Perhaps it held the smell of time itself and Stiles wondered what information the smells alone could reveal to a wolf. He couldn’t begin to guess at the age. It was seriously old, parts in Latin and Greek, parts, surprisingly, in Navajo. The subject of the book fascinated him. It was a history of Beacon Hills. There was an obvious question to the name of the town that never occurred to Stiles.

What about these low-lying hills made them a beacon? The ocean was hours away, longer in summer traffic, so it couldn’t refer to a lighthouse. The topography of the place had no distinction. The distant Sierras dwarfed these hills. Mainly it was forest, deep forest that could still lay partial claim to the word wilderness. What was it about this unspecial place that could lay claim to the word “beacon”?

It took days of research and all of Stiles’ sketchy gifts at translation, but when he found it, he laughed for crazy joy. Yes! Of course! Before he knew what he was doing, he was racing his car over to the Hale mansion. There had been enough of a snowfall to render the roads a bit icy, but Stiles maneuvered his Jeep expertly. There he was, jumping out of his car in the Hale driveway. “Derek, Derek, Der-Bear,” get your grump-butt out here. The Amazing Stiles has something for you.”

Are some quiets emptier than others? There was no response from the house at all. Stiles was certain he would be able to feel something of Derek, but there was nothing. In that moment, Stiles hopes began to fall.

“Ah, c’mon, Derek. I just … I won’t bother you. I just … I have something for you. I really think you’ll like it, if you let me.”

The quiet again, but if possible, maybe a little less empty. And then a sigh carried on icy wind, from behind him. Stiles turned around. Derek was walking out of the forest toward him.

“I don’t do Christmas gifts and I don’t have anything for you. I thought you understood.” There was a softness to his voice that was the most terrible thing Stiles had ever heard. It was defeat; it was the whisper of a blade skating over the thin ice of the abyss. “I just need a few more days, okay?”

This is where Stiles’ steel again became necessary. Without it he would have crossed the distance between him and Derek in a heartbeat and wrapped him in his arms and tried to warm his cold away. But Stiles had the steel to stay put.

“It’s not a Christmas present. It’s from – before Christmas even, so no presents,” said Stiles evenly.

“Not now, okay?” said Derek.

“It has to be now,” insisted Stiles. "It has to be today. Pretend you trust me, okay? And we’re going to need the snow shoes I saw in your basement.”

* * *

Stiles had no future as a cartographer. They had been hiking into the forest for nearly two hours. The book’s ancient map that Stiles had scanned and loaded into this smartphone would have been useful, maybe, if he still had cell reception. And the idea that the forest could still resemble what it looked liked ages ago was simply stupid. They were lost.

“Stiles,” said Derek, “if I can feel the cold, you must be freezing. I don’t know what your plan is, but it’s time to head back.”

“It’s got to be close,” insisted Stiles through teeth that were beginning to chatter. “C’mon, trust me.”

“If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be here, but here I am, Stiles, in middle of nowhere, because you asked me to.”

The cry of a werewolf in the night could not have caused the vibration inside Stiles that Derek’s words had created.

“You trust me. You said you trust me,” blurted Stiles.

“Yes,” said Derek simply.

“Dude, you make me giddy. For reals. See, I have this theory…”

“Stiles, it’s cold. Let’s go,” Derek said wearily.

“No, can’t, must speak or die. See, I think love is easy, but trust is hard. Don’t even pretend that you don’t love. You would give your life for anyone in the pack, even me, and you’d do it without thinking. Blame it on wolf pack instinct if you must, but that’s because you’re afraid of the L word. I’m not. Derek Hale loves. Everything the world has done to break you and ... and ... you still love.”

Derek’s shut his eyes and turned away from Stiles. His breath was ragged. He clung to the last threads of his frayed strength. Stiles could feel Derek’s pain and it cut him.

“Derek, stop letting Kate win,” Stiles blurted.

Derek turned on him, his eyes flashed red with rage. “What did you say,” he snarled? “What did you say to me?”

In this moment, Stiles realized he could die. He hadn’t thought it through. He wasn't a psychologist and even with the best of intentions, he shouldn’t have pushed a dangerous and broken man. Derek’s claws emerged. His transformation to wolf had begun. He moved toward Stiles, circling him like prey. Stiles trembled. They were in the wilderness and no one would protect him.

Stiles turned to face Derek and directly met his gaze. His next movements were slow, but deliberate. He pulled open his coat and his shirt at the neck. “Are you going to kill me, Derek? Is that what you want? Here, I’ll make it easy.” Stiles lifted his chin to fully expose the pale white of his neck.

The wolf emitted a guttural growl, stepped forward, growled, then averted its head, and moved away.

“Come back to me,” Stiles said softly.

The wolf became the man. He sat in the snow, his every breath a razor’s edge of sorrow. Stiles sat next to him as he rebuttoned his coat. “If you ever wondered if I trust you – now you know.”

Derek was beyond words. He simply leaned his shoulder to touch Stiles.

“Every time you refuse to be loved, you’re letting her win. I know, I know. Kate is dead, but every time you return to the world of all you lost, you let her win again.“ Stiles shut his eyes so hard, the tears popped from his eyes. Derek watched in numb wonder as the sorrows he couldn't speak of spilled out of this boy. He pulled off his gloves and brushed the wet off Stiles’ cheeks.

“It must seem like the world wants you to lose. If that's the case, then the world needs to go down - and I'll fight with you. If you really return to this world – and it’s not a nice world – there are terrible things in it, but there’s love and light, too, and the monsters that are still keeping you from it. Let’s kill them. Let’s break them, Derek. Every time you say no to the sadness, you destroy them. C’mon, you, me, the pack, let’s grind them into dust," implored Stiles.

For a long moment Derek sat immobile. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I know what I’m supposed to say, but I don’t know if I can. I don’t know who I am beyond this.” Derek pulled his glove back on. “The temperature is dropping, Stiles. Tears freeze, and we won’t have the light for much longer. Let’s head back.” They stood and for several moments walked without speaking.

“The beacon is a tree,” blurted Stiles, “an ancient tree, ancient when the world was new. A redwood. It towered over the rest of the forest. It could we seen for miles around and was a sacred landmark for the native people. They called it Ancient of Days. The tree is the beacon of Beacon Hills. I wanted you to know that. That’s what I wanted to give you.”

Derek thought about this for a moment, then a slow smile of wonder spread across his face. “That’s wonderful. I love knowing that. Best Christmas…”

“Pagan,” interrupted Stiles. “You don’t do Christmas.”

“…best pagan present ever.” Derek looked at him and shivered, but not from the cold. “We have to go.”

That’s when they saw it. So vast, so elemental, as to be rendered unseen. It was astonishingly wide. Stiles thought they had been walking around a boulder. The height of if could only be imagined as the tree seemed to disappear in the darkening sky. Stiles whooped for joy, ran toward it, and placed his hands on it.

A mistake. A fatal mistake. Humans desire to know the sacred, but none may touch it without price. The Beacon tree existed in an objibwa, a thin place, where the old world sometimes opened to this one. From out of the Old, the Ancient of Days emerged like a wraith and bore down on them.

Derek and Stiles were knocked hard to the ground as the Spirit, dark and furious, gathered into form before them. They could feel its affront, its rage, at their intrusion. They could feel its consciousness as words.

“You will die for this,” it said.

Stiles was paralyzed with fear as the Ancient of Days moved over Derek like a fog. He felt shock to see it use the most primordial of all senses. It smelled him. “Werewolf,” it said. “Forest. As it was in the beginning of the world and in all the worlds that followed. You may live.”

In less than a moment, the Ancient of Days moved over Stiles. In an uptake of air, it took in Stiles’ essence. “Human,” it pronounced like a death sentence. “You and your kind show no mercy to the earth. No mercy is what I give you.”

A sudden fury of wind surrounded him as if to disincorporate him in a violence of air. A terrible lightness came over Stiles, lifting him, pulling at him, and then, shockingly, a weight like a blow drove him back down on the earth. Derek had thrown himself on top of Stiles.

“No,” yelled Derek, “no. Not this one. This one…”

“What?” raged the Ancient of Days. “Do you not recognize it by its smell?”

“I know his smell,” yelled Derek into the wind.

“What is it? Name it,” commanded the Spirit.

In the noise of the wind, Stiles couldn’t hear what Derek said. What he knew was that the word spoken by Derek stopped the Spirit, first in confusion, then recognition. As suddenly as it came, the Ancient of Days returned to its world. The forest was quiet and they were alone.

“We have trespassed,” Derek said to Stiles, “and we need to leave here quickly. Are you okay? Can you walk?” Derek helped drag Stiles to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Stiles trudged after Derek for half a mile before he stopped. Derek turned back. “Stiles, we can still get back in the light if we hurry.”

“What did you say, Derek? When it told you to name me, what did you say?”

“C’mon, Stiles, we have to go.”

“No,” replied Stiles, “not until you tell me.”

Derek stepped toward him until they were almost touching and then he leaned gently toward Stiles’ ear. On a shuddery breath, he said the word.

To the winter crow flying overhead, it might have been a curious sight to see two men in a lonely forest clinging hard to each other, lips touching in breath, in life. But the spoken word carried into the air was elemental, known even to the rocks and trees.

“Home,” Derek had whispered in Stiles’ ear, “I said you were my home.”


End file.
